Committee Reports > List of Committees > Dáil > 1970 > Committee of Public Accounts > Interim and Final Report - Appropriation Accounts 1967 - 1968

MIONTUAIRISC NA FINNEACHTA

(Minutes of Evidence)

Déardaoin, 5 Márta, 1970

Thursday, 5th March, 1970

The Committee met at 11 a.m.

Mr. E. F. Suttle (An tArd-Reachtaire Cuntas agus Ciste) and Mr. P. S. Mac Guill and Mr. J. R. Whitty (An Roinn Airgeadais) called and examined.

VOTE 20—OFFICE OF THE MINISTER FOR JUSTICE.

Mr. P. Berry called and examined.

609. Chairman.—Paragraph 28 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General reads:

“Inspection of District Court Offices

28. Inspections at District Court Offices are carried out periodically by Department of Justice staff, normally at yearly intervals. In the course of an examination of the register of inspections it was noted that ten offices had not been inspected for two years or more and I have invited the observations of the Accounting Officer.”

610. Deputy E. Collins.—Have these inspections been carried out?

Mr. Suttle.—The ten offices mentioned in the paragraph have now been inspected. The Accounting Officer has informed me that there has been a substantial increase recently in the volume of work in the district court and, as the number of examiners had not increased, it had not been possible to maintain the usual annual inspection in all cases. The inspection and accounting procedures have now been modified to a level which would enable annual inspections to be carried out without an increase in staff. I have been consulted with regard to this matter and I shall keep the position under review.

611. Would you not consider the employment of extra inspectors?

Mr. Suttle.—Apparently the Accounting Officer is satisfied with the present staff and under the modified procedures they will be able to carry out the inspections as heretofore.

612. This will not lead to any lessening of efficiency?

Mr. Suttle.—I do not think so. That is a matter we will keep under review. We will see that the efficiency will be maintained.

613. Chairman.—How many courts have we got?

Mr. Berry.—When we talk about doing increased work, the position is that we have only two examiners and the number of cases heard increased from 289,000 in 1964 to 358,000 in 1968. That was an increase of 24 per cent. The number of fines imposed increased from 84,000 to 126,000 which was a 50 per cent increase and the amount collected in fines increased from £129,000 to £237,000. We were still trying to function with two examiners which just was not possible. About that time we had a circular from the Department of Finance suggesting that instead of the full checks we might have spot-checks and this is the arrangement we have come to with the concurrence of the audit office and a satisfactory solution has been reached. We take spot-checks instead of full checks as heretofore. The alternative would be to increase staff considerably.

614. What is the nature of the checking which is carried out?

—Modifications have been made in the inspection procedures in relation to district court offices and it is expected that these changes will reduce the time required for such inspections by about half. The modifications are (1) the reduction of the former complete check of stamped documents to a sample check of 25 per cent of the documents. (2) The elimination of (a) the checking of every receipt item in the office cash book against the duplicate receipts retained in the office, (b) the checking of every payment item in the office cash book against the bank statement. Check (a) is a duplication of a check already performed in the Department when the quarterly accounts are received. The effect of check (b) will be achieved in the Department in a more expeditious manner as a result of changes in the method of preparation of the quarterly accounts. (3) The substitution of two office cash books, one for receipts, the other for lodgments and payments, in place of the former single cash book. The latter was confusing to operate and interpret and did not show clearly the financial position at a particular time.

615. Do the inspectors have to travel around?

—The inspectors travel from court to court. We have 61 district offices.

616. Deputy E. Collins.—In relation to subhead A.—Salaries, Wages and Allowances—have the staff vacancies been filled or why the delay in filling them?

—All I can say, and I hate to place blame elsewhere, is that we are always at the mercy of the Department of Finance. We always have delays. We had provided originally £20,000 for additional posts and the filling of vacancies. The Department of Finance cut that to £10,000 and subsequently reduced it to £5,000 and then we did not get these posts filled until late in the year. There is always a time lag between the time a post is authorised and the time it can be filled, of six to nine months.

617. Is the Department’s working efficiency reduced very much?

—Of course, it is reduced. The Department of Justice at any time on any day in the year has no fewer than 70 authorised vacancies which are not filled. Sometimes the figure rises to 80 or 90. Again and again I made spot-checks and I made this point before the Devlin inquiry. On the day I appeared before the Devlin inquiry we had 77 authorised vacancies for which we could get nobody. Of course, efficiency suffers.

618. Deputy Briscoe.—This goes back to the difficulty which most Departments have experienced in recruiting people to the Civil Service?

—That is true. It is not peculiar to the Department of Justice, it relates to the Civil Service as a whole. It is partly the fault of the news media which have written down the Civil Service as a crowd of óinseacha. Our sons and daughters do not want to join the Civil Service today. It is like the police in the old days. It is a dirty word. In my own office we have had, in the past 12 months or so, three girls resigning to become nurses at far lower money. The Civil Service has become a dirty word. It has no attraction. It is routine. Our difficulties are common to all Government Departments.

619. Deputy E. Collins.—Can we make a recommendation that the staff vacancies be filled?

Mr. Suttle.—That matter has been discussed by previous committees and by last year’s committee. You will find it at page 17 of the report.

620. Chairman.—You have a Public Record Office and you keep State papers and historical documents. What kind of State papers?

—Nominally the State Paper Office is attached to the Public Records Office but, in fact, it is controlled from the Taoiseach’s Department. Complete control is exercised by the Taoiseach in relation to the State Paper Office.

621. Deputy E. Collins.—By tradition?

—Yes, all through the years. There is just one man and a boy in the office.

622. Chairman.—And the purchase of historical documents?

—Yes, there was an interesting item purchased during that particular year. We were informed that a document was on offer at Sothebys in London which was of great historical importance to Ireland. We sought and got the sanction of the Department of Finance for its purchase. Medieval Irish Plea Rolls were purchased at Sotheby’s in July, 1968. The cost was £1,485, Finance sanction S13/2/67 of 5th July, 1968.

623. Deputy E. Collins.—On subhead E— Commissions and Special Inquiries—what is the O’Mahony Tribunal?

Mr. Suttle.—That is the Cork inquiry. The expenditure on this is shown on the next page.

624. Chairman.—On subhead F—Legal Aid—perhaps the Accounting Officer would like to make a comment?

—I made a very full statement on this within the last two years. At last year’s session I mentioned that we were in a state of change, that the Minister with the consent of the Minister for Finance, was engaged in a review of this. When the Bill was introduced in 1965 our Minister then said that this was an exploratory piece of social legislation in the legal field for the first time and as it was exploratory the fees were being fixed at a fairly low level and that he would have it reviewed in two or three years time. That review has been going on and I think as late as yesterday my Minister made a statement in the Dáil in reply to a Parliamentary question. The simple fact is that he has made an offer of 25 per cent increase in the fees to both the Law Society and the Bar Council. The Law Society have accepted. The Bar Council were non-committal until they jumped into print on the 13th February to say no, not having told the Minister in advance. The Minister is agreeable to make a new regulation to increase the fees by 25 per cent. The present position is set out in the Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Regulations, 1965 (S.I. No. 12 of 1965) which provided that legal aid can be claimed on certification by the court when certain conditions— indigency and grievous matter—are fulfilled.

625. I asked about this because the expenditure was considerably lower?

—I should say that we have no way of knowing whether a case is a proper one for legal aid. We depend entirely on the certification of the court. We originally started with a provision of £20,000 and we found fees only amounted to £8,000 so we reduced the provision to £16,000 and the courts have given certification for £9,000, which is satisfactory from our point of view. They are acting sensibly.

You have to pay it by the year?

—That is right.

VOTE 21—GARDA SÍOCHÁNA.

Mr. P. Berry further examined.

626. Deputy Briscoe.—On subhead A— Salaries, Wages and Allowances—I see in the Explanations that a sum of £464,000 was received from the Vote for Remuneration. Could we have an explanation as to how this would affect wages and salaries?

Mr. Suttle.—It was due to a general increase of remuneration to all public servants. There was a special Vote, No. 52, to cover all Departments. The charge under the subhead for the Department is reduced by the sum of the £464,000.

627. Chairman.—In respect of subhead C —Post Office Services—I find that the provision for Post Office Services for 1967-68 was £158,000 and £260,000 for 1968-69. That is an increase of about £100,000. It seems very big. Is there any particular explanation apart from the fact that Post Office charges have increased?

Mr. Berry.—I could give the committee a breakdown on this but we are entirely in the hands of the Post Office. Sometimes those charges may appear excessive but we accept the figures given by the Post Office as bona fide.

628. There has been an increase in the charge but no extra demand?

—The excess arose because of higher telephone charges, higher rental charges and. also, increased use of the telephone by the Force. As the committee knows, the Force has been anchored in recent years at 6,560 which is about 800 lower than it was 18 years ago. With a depleted force of 6,560 we have to make greater use of equipment, mechanical, telephonic and radio, in order to maintain the level of efficiency. This is one reason for the increase.

629. Deputy Briscoe.—On subhead D— Clothing and Equipment—is there any difficulty in recruiting at the present time?

—None in the world. As I mentioned on this occasion last year for every 400 vacancies we have 900 suitable applicants, that is more than 2 to 1. Those applicants are suitable in every way as to height and education.

630. Is it the intention to increase this number. You say you have fewer men than you had some years ago?

—We have fewer than we had 18 years ago. We now have 6,560. That is the norm over the last three years.

631. Deputy Barry.—Why is the salary and uniform expenditure down on the grant given for them?

—The reason for that is that the members of the Force at any time after a certain period of service may retire like Civil Servants who can retire between 60 and 65 years of age. Gardaí can retire over a span of years, too. As I explained last year, when there is any sign of an increase in pay coming up gardaí who might normally be inclined to retire do not retire. We had calculated on 300 retirements and an intake of 300 recruits but 259 retired with the result that we bought less uniforms and used less of them. The intake was lower than we thought would be necessary. That was because there were less retirements.

632. Deputy Briscoe.—On subhead E— Station Services—is there any intention of modernising the methods of heating stations and lowering the cost of fuel, or is it policy to use home-produced fuel which is probably more expensive than oil-heating?

—You are going into a policy question here.

633. I was merely asking are you going over to oil?

—I can only repeat that it is Government policy to use home-produced fuel as far as possible.

634. Deputy Collins.—What is the method of heating at the new Garda stations?

—It depends on their size. Depending on their size they may have oil-firing or other means. At Thurles there is oil-fired heating. My recollection is that that is so. Where there is only a small station with a sergeant and three gardaí the normal fuel is used for the fireplaces.

635. What about South Parade, Waterford? There was a problem here. What are the methods used to rent the Garda station at South Parade?

—We have come to an arrangement over the last two days. We have rented a premises, from the De la Salle Brothers, which are very acceptable to the local Garda. Unquestionably, the existing premises have been in very bad state of repair in recent years. The old premises and the temporary premises were both unsuitable.

636. Who made a decision to move to South Parade? What was the method of renting the house?

—This is a matter for the Office of Public Works. The Minister for Justice has no function in relation to the provision of buildings. The Office of Public Works do that.

Deputy Collins.—It was a very inefficient and bad move and I feel there was something illegal about it. I intend to take it up with the Office of Public Works.

—It was not my responsibility.

637. Chairman.—In respect of subhead H. —Appropriations in Aid—there is a figure estimated at £540,550 as payment from the Road Fund for the working of the Garda service. Why was it reduced by £70,000?

—When the estimate was being prepared, the Department of Finance had hoped that the contribution from the Road Fund would be fixed at 2½ per cent. This had been prepared on that basis. The Department of Local Government refused to give more than 2 per cent.

638. Deputy Briscoe.—Under Notes, 1 notice an ex-gratia payment amounting to £45 which was made to a civilian who suffered injuries assisting gardaí. What was this incident?

—The general situation is that there is no provision in law for paying a person who is injured in such circumstances but in the new Criminal Justice Bill, which the Minister will be promoting, there is a provision providing that in future instead of an ex-gratia payment there will be an absolute right to compensation. The ex-gratia method of payment is a device we picked on. If a man suffers injuries assisting gardaí we make an ex-gratia payment. The sanction in question referred to here was given on 21st November, 1969. A panel beater was involved. He tackled an armed man and suffered abrasions on his left hand as a result of which he was incapable of taking up a contract worth £40 to £50. The Minister for Justice thanked him personally. This is a case where an armed robbery was occurring. This young boy and his mother saw what was happening and saw people running pursued by the gardaí. The boy ran out and tackled some of the people at risk to his own life. Incidentally, the gardaí were not too thankful to him because he might have provoked the loss of his life. A civilian acting in circumstances like that may do more harm than good. It was very courageous of him, nevertheless, and he suffered this disability. We rewarded him to that extent. We also offered him a job as a messenger in the public service at about £14 per week but he declined and told us he was able to make up to £20 as a panel beater.

639. Deputy Briscoe.—Will this compensation be payable by the Department of Justice under the new system?

—There will be a right to compensation.

640. Who will pay this?

—The State. This subject has been raised in the Dáil in almost every one of my 43 years in the Department of Justice.

VOTE 22—PRISONS.

Mr. P. Berry further examined.

641. Chairman.—Paragraph 29 of the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General reads as follows:

“29. The account shows a deficiency of £8,632 in appropriations in aid realised. There was a surplus of £4,786 in the gross estimate over expenditure. The net deficit is therefore £3,846. The Accounting Officer has informed me that the deficiency arose mainly because payments in respect of outstanding accounts for manufactured goods supplied by the prisons were not received before 31 March 1969.”

642. We have to make an interim report on this matter. The House has to vote the extra money. The appropriations did not come up to expectations and consequently there was a deficit.

643. Deputy E. Collins.—What was the bulk of the extra remuneration of £16.444? It seems to be a substantial amount?

Mr. Suttle.—Overtime.

644. Should it not appear in the Estimate, rather than appear under extra remuneration?

Mr. Suttle.—There is a standing rule that an accounting officer must report to the Committee in his account any extra remuneration paid to any of the servants in his office other than the normal standard remuneration. This figures covers the total amount of overtime paid to prison staff during the year.

645. Are the staff overworked, do you think?

Mr. Berry.—I would say that prisons are generally understaffed. In that sense, yes, they are overworked. It so happens that one can never estimate when an influx of prisoners may occur suddenly which would require officers to work longer than their 84-hour fortnight. They might have to do extra duty. The arrangement is that the officer gets time of in lieu but if he cannot get that within a certain period he must be paid overtime.

646. Is the understaffing of a serious nature?

—It is in the sense that crime is growing all the time as are the commitals to prison. The estimated daily average of the number of prisoners for 1968-69 was 580. The actual daily average was 620. The number in custody yesterday was 700 so that next year there probably will again be a considerable increase in overtime.

647. Deputy E. Collins.—Can we make a recommendation that the prisons should not be understaffed?

Chairman.—There are several ways in which it could be raised.

—I could add that while the average cost weekly at present of keeping a prisoner in custody is £18 8s. by this time next year it will have risen to over £20. It is costing £20 a week at the moment to keep each man, woman and juvenile delinquent in prison or in institutions.

648. Deputy Briscoe.—Is there any way in which prisoners can be engaged in more remunerative work as far as receipts to the service are concerned? Mail bags are very low priced articles. Could they do something which would be as simple but more saleable?

—I would sincerly welcome any suggestion from the Deputy. We have consulted the Federation of Irish Industries, the trade unions, the vocational schools, anybody and everybody. In this country we have a large pool of unemployed. Furthermore the people we get in prison, or a very high proportion of them, are illiterate or almost illiterate. They cannot be taught trades. Even if a man is intelligent and literate he cannot be taught anything in three or six months, which is the norm. In that length of time he can be taught nothing except to scrub lavatories, chop wood, make mail-bags, the most routine kind of jobs.

649. The object of the question was to find out whether consideration had been given to this. Obviously it has?

—Again and again we have had deputations. We have invited many people in— the managing director of Jacobs, Guinness’s, anybody the Committee can think of we have had them. The only people who have given us real help are the builders and the builders give us common labouring work. In fact, in the last two years we had very strong objections from the Society for the Protection of the Blind because we started basket weaving in Mountjoy. They said we were now making inroads on their market and that there was only a limited market. It is a frightening problem. We had an old-fashioned loom there where we wove all our own cloth. It was really a Heath-Robinson affair. I brought a manufacturer in to see it and he said: “What is this for? Why do you not get electricity? But what we wanted was to keep men occupied, not pressing electric buttons. We must keep them occupied somehow. It is a frightening problem and we can only give them very low grade work like choping wood, making mailbags and boxes for the post office. We have made attempts within St. Patrick’s, which was the old Borstal, where we have boys of 17 to 20 years there for fairly long periods. Our Minister in 1963 set up an inter-Departmental committee of which I was chairman. We saw the vocational schools people, the trade unions and so on. We tried to get the vocational teachers to teach these boys trades and we were straight up against an iron wall. The unions would not permit an apprenticeship to be started unless certain conditions were fulfilled—for a start the applicant must have at least the group certificate or the intermediate certificate. There was not one of those 70 or 80 boys who had a group certificate. They do not know the difference between one-eighth and one-sixteenth of an inch when cutting wood.

650. Deputy Barry.—Is an effort made to give them some kind of formal education?

—Yes, we try. We have a trained schoolmaster there and over a number of years we have brought in educational psychologists to help us. They have told us that to give the boys the normal teaching given, say, by the Christian Brothers or by ordinary primary teachers is wasting time. A great proportion of these people are what I would call subliminal. They have not got ordinary intelligence. My Ministers over the last 20 or 30 years have invited Deputies again and again to come and see for themselves what the problems and what the conditions are in the prisons. I could count on my two hands the number of Deputies who have come in ten years.

651. Deputy Tunney.—I am familiar with St. Patrick’s and I feel that even though the majority of these boys are below average intelligence it would be a good thing to have a wholetime teacher who would give them elementary English and arithmetic?

—We have that.

652. Yes, and he is a very good teacher, but I think at times he may be called on to do other duties?

—No, and I would like Deputies to see this for themselves. We have a regular classroom where each boy has his little desk. It is arranged so that the teacher never has his back towards the boys. He writes while facing them and what he writes appears in foot high letters on the wall behind him. It is very necessary to keep control. It is most rewarding to see what is being done. This teacher is wholetime, doing nothing else whatever except teaching. Prisons is my pet subject. I started in the prisons section as a clerical officer 43½ years ago so this is something I know something about. When we get boys who have a promise of rehabilitation we move them to Shangannagh, Co. Dublin. You will have noticed that there is extra money provided this year and Shangannagh is the explanation. This new place has 28 acres. It would accommodate up to 58 boys. At the moment we have 25 there. It is almost an open institution; they could walk out if they wanted to. We take them at a certain stage when they have three or six months to go of a two-year sentence or so. We try to move them into an ordinary social milieu. We give them responsibility and try to teach them to be self-reliant. It is too soon to say if this will be a success or a failure. It has only been in operation for a year and a half and on the computations of people like the criminologists of the United Nations Organisation and of the Council of Europe, 15 years of study are needed to know whether a system is a success or a failure. In the annual report of prisons every year the Governor of St. Patrick’s Institution claims that he has 75 per cent successes. To the person who understands the subject, this is just cod because what he means is that 75 per cent of the boys he had in the previous year have not come back again. The simple fact is that we export most of our eighteens to twenty-twos. If one were to examine the after history of these boys for ten or 15 years, if one could go to Birmingham, Leeds, Coventry, places like that, and follow up their case histories then one could come to a valid conclusion but one can come to no valid conclusion in this country with the small groups we have. I have attended seminars in Stockholm, Geneva, Paris, London and Rome at which there were some very fine brains at work and some very fine thinking done. At the last one I attended at Stockholm there were 98 nations represented and almost all of them disagreed, not as to cause but as to cure. Nobody had a cure. As one set of delegates said the answer was probation, the other shot it down. Probation is advocated very much in this country today but the Belgians, I think, were able to show us that for five years they conducted an experiment. They took two comparable sets of 500 boys and girls of the same calibre of delinquency— remember the people who are put on probation are not the worst—and they put one set on probation. At the end of five years all the case histories were examined. There was scarcely any appreciable difference between the final results in one group as against the other. That was discrediting the value of probation but they again said: “Five years is too short a term in which to evaluate anything. You need 15 years.” In fact, in Austria they are going to the extent of taking a town of the size of Thurles but with a couple of thousand inhabitants. They are tabulating everybody, with their consent, from the cradle to the grave with regard to occupations, habits, aptitudes, et cetera to try and evaluate particular behaviour patterns. There are some very fine brains formulating this kind of good research but it is a long-term job. At the moment there is nothing we, in Ireland, can do in relation to research without enormous cost that is not being done for us in those countries which have large resources. In England they have 34,000 at the moment in prison and they are sleeping them three to a cell in some places. In the State of California they have 25,000 juvenile delinquents alone on probation. Here we are sometimes criticised for not doing research. Our total daily population, inclusive of those on remand awaiting trial, debtors and contempt of court prisoners, is of the order of 600/700. The actual convicted criminal population is much less. What conclusion can you draw from a study of low figures like that?

653. Deputy Briscoe.—What is the average caseload of those countries for a probation officer

—There is a difference between the ideal and what is practical. The ideal, according to the Home Office in London, where they are spending buckets of money on various forms of services which they may discard every so often, is that one probation officer should not have more than 35, although a couple of years ago they were talking in terms of 55. In England when they find that a system is not giving good results, they have the resources to tear it up and start again afresh. I should tell you that, in my view, the idea that there should only be professional probation officers is all wrong. Sweden and her neighbours are among the most advanced countries in the world today. In the Nordic countries, especially in Sweden, where I went into this in some depth, I found they have only a nucleus of paid probation officers but they have a very fine probation service which is very largely what one might call voluntary. It is operated within the trade unions. Every trade union has a cadré of probation officers. If a baker’s son goes wrong a trade unionist within that group looks after the baker’s son. His expenses, bus fares, telephone charges etc. are paid. They have this voluntary system. We have been trying since 1944 to build up a probation system based largely on voluntary effort. About then, we had 44 voluntary probation officers. By 1950 we had six paid probation officers and 44 voluntary probation officers. By 1957 we had no voluntary probation officers for the simple reason that the professionals had deliberately frozen them out. That seems to be endemic in every organisation all the time—an antagonism between the paid worker and the unpaid voluntary helper. Today we have six probation officers and one probation administration officer. We are in the process of looking for Finance sanction for one senior welfare officer and five additionals. As long ago as 1963 I put tentative proposals to the Department of Finance that our ambition was to raise, in time, our paid strength to 20 probation officers, still as a nucleus, with greatly expanded voluntary help. But we see the net results of what we have achieved: nothing.

654. Deputy Tunney.—In the matter of St. Patrick’s, have we given any thought to the employment of a lady there?

—Very much so. To my mind it is a cardinal error not to have the feminine influence. We have made overtures to the highest hierarchical authorities, for instance, that we might even have the services of nuns. I have seen this abroad. I have seen it in schools in Rome. I have heard it debated. Once you bring in the feminine influence, not in a miniskirt by the way, but say nuns, it has an extraordinarily good effect on boys, even the toughest.

655. Personally, I would be more attracted to employing a lay person. A very strong case can be made for bringing in somebody who would represent the only person in the life of those young fellows who ever gave them any consolation, that is, their mothers. We should be spending some money on the employment of a lady or two in this place?

—The Department of Justice could not agree with you more. You have two difficulties. First of all, you have the difficulty of getting some body suitable. Remember St. Patricks has 202 juvenile adults there at the moment and everyone of them is a young tough who has been before the court not once but five, six, seven, eight or ten times. There is not a single boy in St. Patrick’s who was committed on his first occasion before the courts. Every one of them has had a chance and a second chance. The courts are proceeding on the basis that it is no longer retribution which is required but rehabilitation. A certain amount of punishment is necessary, but the whole question in the Department of Justice in relation to prison administration in the last seven to ten years has been: “How do we rehabilitate them”? I would like you tell me where I can get a suitable person with the necessary qualifications.

656. At all times we postpone what might be desirable by making a case for suitability. Even if she were half suitable she would be better than a very suitable male counterpart in this place?

—We have very suitable what I would call wardresses, female prison officers, who have all the qualities but in order to deal with boys like this the woman would have to be a matron. The most desirable person would be somebody not less than 45 or 50 years of age. Those delinquents are toughs. They are not just namby-pamby boys.

657. On that score some people visited there and some very attractive ladies spoke to those boys some time ago. I think they were very impressed. There were young ladies there doing research work in St. Patrick’s and I do not think they suffered any toughness from them?

—All I can say is that this is very live to our minds, the necesssity for the feminine influence within our institutions.

VOTE 23—COURTS.

Mr. P. Berry further examined.

658. Chairman.—Could you enlighten me on one small point? It is a question of financing the courts. I notice that judges’ salaries and pensions have increased to £222,000 and are paid out of the Central Fund. Why are they paid out of the Central Fund? Is there some Constitutional reason?

Mr. Berry.—Yes. It is the independence of the Judiciary.

659. Is money provided in this Vote for the maintenance of the court houses up and down the country? I know the county council has the responsibility of providing some money for keeping the courts in order. Does the State make a corresponding contribution?

—No.

660. It is entirely from the local rates? —Outside the city of Dublin the responsibility rests on the local authorities to provide and maintain courthouse. In an Act of 1935 the Minister for Justice was given authority to require the local authorities to maintain them and if the local authorities did not proceed to do their job the Minister could direct the Office of Public Works to build or re-construct the courthouse and levy the charge. That is the theory of it. In actual practice the problem has grown huge. At Tralee, County Kerry, the rebuilding of the courthouse would cost about £220,000. There is a problem at other places such as Waterford, Dundalk and Donegal. The problem has grown so huge and the protests of the local authorities about costs have grown so strong that the Government, in 1968, authorised the Minister for Finance to set up an inter-departmental committee to examine the question as to whether the liability should be a State liability or whether the State should give a contribution towards the cost. So far, that committee have not reported.

661. The expenses for capital work and improvement of the courthouses, as well as maintenance and paying staff, all devolve on the local authorities at the moment?

—Yes, the local authorities, purely and simply.

662. Deputy Collins.—Could you say when it is expected the inter-departmental committee will report? It seems to be in the pigeon holes?

—We are told that it is hoped that the committee will report during 1970. The Minister for Finance set up this committee. The chairman is an officer of the Department of Finance. The capital sums involved are huge.

663. I appreciate that. They have become huge because of neglect?

—Yes, neglect over the past 100 years.

Chairman.—All over the country the judges are objecting.

Deputy Collins.—The cost of reconstructing the courthouse would be a terrible expense on the rates.

664. Chairman.—The rates could not meet it?

—Take the case of Tralee, which is very much in the news. The High Court go on circuit twice a year and sit for two days at Tralee. Is the local authority to provide grandiose suites of apartments, consulting rooms for solicitors, clients, and counsel, to be used on two days per year? The circuit court sits on average on each of three days in four sessions, that is, on twelve days. The local authority say: “Are we to spend £220,000 on this building which will be unoccupied for 300 days out of the 365 days in a year?” One can see their point. From the point of view of the administration of justice, however, there must be a certain amount of judicial paraphernalia. Justice must be administered in a proper setting. Under the existing law the cost devolves on the local authority. The question is whether the Government should accept some or all of that liability.

VOTE 24—LAND REGISTRY AND REGISTRY OF DEEDS.

Mr. P. Berry again called.

No question.

The witness withdrew.

VOTE 47—SOCIAL WELFARE.

Mr. L. Honohan called and examined.

665. Chairman.—Paragraph 90 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General reads as follows:

“Subhead E.—Payment to the Social Insurance Fund under section 39 (9) of the Social Welfare Act, 1952

90. Payments from this subhead to the Social Insurance Fund in the year under review amounted to £14,068,000. These payments are subject to adjustment when the audited accounts of the Fund are available.”

666. Have you anything to add to that, Mr. Suttle?

Mr. Suttle.—The adjusted State contribution based on the audited accounts of the fund is £13,771,591. This represents 34.1 per cent of the income of the fund as compared with £13,356,828, representing 38.3 of the previous year. The accounts of the Social Insurance Fund, for the year ended 31st March, 1968, have been presented to the Committee. The contribution income of the fund increased by £4.3 millions in the year under review and the benefits paid by £5.2 millions.

667. Chairman.—Paragraph 91 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General reads as follows:

“Social Assistance Overpayments

91. Sums recovered in respect of overpayments of social assistance charged in prior years’ accounts were: £16,367 in cash credited to appropriations in aid and £19,822 withheld from current entitlements. Overpayments amounting to £8,375 were treated as irrecoverable. The total amount of overpayments not disposed of at 31 March 1969 was £77,616 as compared with £68,125 at 31 March 1968. During the year twenty-three individuals were prosecuted for irregularly obtaining or attempting to obtain social assistance and convictions were secured in twenty-two cases.”

668. Deputy Briscoe.—I notice that in the last sentence it is stated: “During the year 23 individuals were prosecuted for irregularly obtaining or attempting to obtain social assistance and convictions were secured in 22 cases.” Recently it was brought to my notice—but like most of these things no one can ever substantiate them by naming names—that a large number of people who are in fact in employment collect unemployment assistance. Is there any way in which you can check up on some of these people, who seem to come by the car load for their unemployment assistance, to see that they are in fact unemployed?

Mr. Honohan.—We are always on the look out for this sort of thing. If we get evidence we prosecute.

669. You do not have investigators in the employment exchanges who would follow the odd person?

—There are no special investigators but of course the people in the employment exchanges are officials of the Department of Labour and they are doing this on an agency basis for us. Their instructions are that they should be on the look-out for any attempted fraud and pursue it as far as they can.

They cannot very well pursue it while they are sitting in the employment exchange?

—No.

670. In order to reduce this kind of fraud has the Department thought of having special investigators in the employment exchanges, particularly around Dublin, where it is much easier to get away with something of this nature?

Mr. Suttle.—There is an attempt to guard against this sort of thing in that a man who is employed is normally working fixed hours but people are asked to sign on at varying hours. They do not sign on regularly at 10 o’clock in the morning. This week they might sign on at 10 o’clock and next week it might be 12 o’clock. In that way there is an attempt to prevent a man from being in regular employment and at the same time drawing assistance. He does not know from week to week at what time he will be signing on the following week. If he does not turn up at the time he is expected there will be an investigation.

671. Chairman.—Is that rigidly enforced, that a man on unemployment must sign on at specific hours?

—A man must lodge his insurance card when he is getting benefit. If he does not come at the time he is supposed to come, is he let off? Is that your question?

672. Deputy Briscoe.—Does he receive benefit if he does not sign on at the time he is supposed to?

—If the instruction is followed literally he should not get the benefit. He should be there at the time he is supposed to be there.

673. Does he sign every day?

—It depends on the situation. There are complicated circumstances. If he lives within a certain distance of the employment exchange he must sign every day. If he is outside a certain radius it is relaxed a little and if he is outside six miles he does not have to come to the exchange at all. He can give evidence at his local garda station or signing centre. I shall let you have a note about this.*

674. In the case of a man working as an unskilled labourer on a building site, I suppose in the city of Dublin he would have to come down and sign every day?

—If he is within two miles of the exchange. The employer would have the man’s insurance card if he was engaged on building work and unless the employer gave him his card to come to the exchange his appearance at the exchange would be to no avail. There would have to be some collusion between the two.

675. I understand that it can happen that a man subcontracts himself to an employer and the employer is not charged with stamping his card. I have been told, and Deputy Tunney has also heard this, that men come in carloads to sign on and then go back to work. Could there be a check carried out by, say, taking one man who comes regularly and finding out that he is not going back to work in some unofficial capacity or subcontracting himself?

Deputy Barry.—It is easy to check. If he is offered employment and does not take it he automatically loses benefit.

—Suitable employment.

Deputy Barry.—Yes, but if a mason is offered a job as a mason and does not take it he immediately loses benefit.

676. Chairman.—I think what the Committee wants is to see if there are loopholes which are being availed of and what machinery we have to prevent the system being abused. There is a lot of talk about this. I wonder if the accounting officer could give us a memo as to what machinery we have available?

—I can do that certainly. I shall let you have a memorandum.*

677. Chairman.—Members have received copies of the Social Insurance Fund.†

678. Deputy Barry.—What exactly is this?

Mr. Suttle.—The receipts from the payment of stamps and also the State contribution, which is £13 million. On the expenditure side is the benefit paid out. This is the insurance side. The Vote bears the assistance side.

679. Deputy Barry.—What are the securities involved? Is a certain amount of this money to be held?

Mr. Suttle.—It is money that accumulated. This is a continuation of the old National Health and Unemployment Insurance Funds which were set up in 1911. During the years moneys accumulated from time to time and these have been invested and they are still maintained by the Minister for Finance. The income from this investment forms part of the income of the Fund.

680. Deputy Tunney.—This perhaps is an isolated question but I came across a case recently of a worker who had been paying what he called national health for 40 odd years. He now found himself a patient in hospital. He was there for three weeks. As far as he and his brother were concerned he was not yet fit to return home, he was in need of attention, but because of pressures in the hospital apparently it was indicated to him that medically he was better than people who were anxious to come in. I thought it was a little unfair. If this man was in need of medical attention he should not have been sent home where he had nobody to look after him. Is the decision in such a case left to the hospital authorities?

—I would say it is their decision but it has nothing at all to do with my Department. In a case like that we are only concerned with the payment of disability benefit.

You are not concerned with national health?

—No.

681. Is this a matter for the Department of Health?

—Yes, if it is a public hospital. If it is a private hospital it is a matter for the private hospital authority.

682. Chairman.—As a general question, I notice that under a number of items there is a substantial supplementary. Is that a feature of your returns every year? Is it due to legislation giving an increase in these items?

—Yes that is so. It has become a regular thing usually announced in the Budget.

683. Chairman.—What other funds does your Department administer?

—Besides the social insurance fund we have the Occupational Injuries Insurance Fund which follows the Occupational Injuries Act of some three or four years ago. The accounts are submitted to the Houses of the Oireachtas.

684. We have not got any copy?

—If you would like a copy to be sent to the Committee we can do that.

685. Have you any other accounts?

—We have a Wet Time Insurance Fund.

Perhaps we could have that as well?

—Do you mean as a regular thing? Yes?

—We will do that.

686. Deputy Tunney.—Take the case of a widow who has been in receipt of a widow’s pension plus a blind pension. When she becomes eligible for an old age pension may she at that stage receive less than she was receiving from the combined pensions which she was heretofore receiving?

—It is very difficult to answer those hypothetical cases but it can happen.

The witness withdrew.

VOTE 18—VALUATION AND ORDNANCE SURVEY.

Mr. J. Good called and examined.

687. Chairman.—This is Mr. Good’s first time coming before us. You are very welcome.

Mr. Good.—Thank you.

688. Deputy Briscoe.—Are you experiencing difficulty in recruiting staff to fill vacancies in your Department?

—Yes. The difficulties are not immense but they are troublesome because we have as you know a statutory duty to complete every year a revision programme and the process of recruitment is rather slow. It takes some while to train the men and by that time we are well on to the end of the year, that is the end of February.

689. How long will it usually take to train a man?

—We can get him out on the ground in about three to four months but we would not place too much responsibility on him outside a period of two years.

690. On Appropriations in Aid, Ordnance Survey I notice that the sale of maps at £46,046 was greater than expected. Has the sale of maps been affected at all by the increase in the cost of them?

—No. It does not seem to have any effect at all. This year the amount will probably be greater than the £46,000. Admittedly the amount realised has been on the sale of small scale maps not on the larger scale maps.

691. Deputy Tunney.—Is this a business which could be developed? What would explain the demand for them? Would the sale for educational purposes cause that increase?

—No. It would be partly explained by an increase in tourism and by development in the cities and parts of the country.

692. Are you having new officers working with a view to meeting this demand?

—Yes. An appointment has been made for a map salesman to get around and try to increase the demand for them.

Mr. Suttle.—You produced a very attractive map of Dublin recently.

—Yes. It has had a great sale. There were 20,000 sold in the first six months between June and December. I thought the setting up was marvellous. It was new to me as I was not too long there.

VOTE 19—RATES ON GOVERNMENT PROPERTY.

Mr. Good called.

No question.

The witness withdrew.

The Committee adjourned.

* See Appendix 16.

* See Appendix 16.

† See Appendix 17.